Their Hands
by samaryley
Summary: Ponyboy found that he needed to write something else before he could get started on his essay that night. Something else had happened when the brothers had made peace, something important. One-shot.


**I own nobody here. Thanks for the loan of such fantastic characters, S. E. Hinton.**

**THEIR HANDS**

Their hands… I'll never forget their hands. How many times my own had held them – for comfort, for support, for confidence, for belonging. What little kid doesn't reach out in every moment of insecurity for one of his parents' hands, and take immeasurable comfort in it's accepting grasp. It was their hands that, from the very beginning, protected me from harm. It was their hands that, bringing me home, held me safely above the curious fingers of the only other hands I ever completely trusted, those of my brothers.

Her hands. The softness, the gentle way in which she guided me along. She had held her hand over my own as we practiced the letters of my name.

"That's right, baby," she whispered in my ear as, for what seemed like the hundredth time, we made a balloon with a stick. "_P,_" she said. "_P for Ponyboy_." Over and over she held my hand as we practiced. _P for Ponyboy_. The warmth of her fingers over mine eventually caused us to meld into one; finally I realized that she had withdrawn her grasp and, shockingly, to my three-year-old self, I was forming the first letter of my name all on my own.

"You did it!" she exclaimed, and surrounded me with herself. My mother- her smell, the feeling of her arms around me, her hand over mine- I'll never forget it. Later that same day it was her gentle, loving hands that gingerly washed my newly scraped knee and smoothed the band-aid down over it. They were the same hands that smoothed back my hair while I cried, and rubbed my back whenever I was sick.

Her hands worked magic in the kitchen, an art none of the rest of us would ever come to master as she had. Every Christmas, her hands guided mine as I pressed the cookie cutters down into the flattened dough, and her hands lovingly slapped at my brothers' wrists as they attempted to steal away with the scraps.

Her hands affected all of us in ways that no one else's could. Many a time, her steadying hand on one of his shoulders was all it took to bring Dallas down from dangerous to docile. None of the rest of us would have dared risk touching him, but her hands were capable of healing and soothing hurts that the rest of ours would never be. There was something magical about them.

His hands were different, but no less influential. They surrounded my own as he taught me to cradle the football, to palm the threads in a way so that they became a part of myself, and worked to my advantage in terms of traction, as I tossed a long one as far as I could for Darry to catch. Dad's hands would land under my arms after the throw and lift me up to his level, where he would embrace me and pull me in close, whispering in my ear. "_Perfect_."

His hands steadied the handlebars as I struggled to achieve the balance that Darry and Soda had already mastered on their bicycles. I was still too young, but Dad understood, and his strong hands on both me and the bike ensured that no great harm would come of my determination to learn.

His hands were always at work for Darry and Soda. He taught Darry how to throw and catch, and how to fix anything that needed fixing around the house. Their hands, both of them, were just suited for tools. I never could handle anything more substantial than a screwdriver; but he always took me along, showing what hands could do, how they could solve a problem. His hands could solve most every one, it had seemed to me.

In Darry's case, Dad's hands had taught him to build, to create, to take separate pieces and to combine them together to make something. As for Soda, his hands worked to solve the problems that occurred in machinery. Guided by Dad's, Soda's hands learned to fix our cars, our appliances, our wiring. Between Darry and Soda, Dad's hands had already taught them how to fix everything we had before I was really even old enough to learn.

There was nothing left I needed to fix.

So, both of them encouraged my hands to take a different direction. My hands were never empty, thanks to my parents, but instead of filling them with hammers or wrenches, they filled my hands with pencils, crayons; anything that would encourage me to make my mark on this world.

So, make my mark I did. In pastels, paint, and my less-than perfect handwriting. I filled notebook after notebook, sketch pad after sketch pad. For the longest time, nobody ever asked to see what I wrote or drew except for Mom and Dad. They would run their fingers over the lines of my sketches, feeling them as much as seeing them. Their hands knew.

Soda came in once while Dad was looking at a pastel piece that I had just finished, and, seeing Dad so enthralled, as he ran his fingers over the section where the yellow and purple met, Soda took interest. After that, he would ask to see my pictures, but he never felt the need to touch them, to _feel_ them. Mom and Dad's hands had never taught him how. Just as I couldn't build things, or fix cars, his hands were meant for other things.

Somehow, our parents' hands had always guided us down exactly the path that was intended for each of us.

When I lost them, for the longest time, I couldn't feel my hands.

It took a long, long time before I was able to pick up a pen or pencil again. I no longer felt that gentle hand encircling mine, guiding it across the paper, pushing me in the direction I was meant to go. I was no longer sure of which lines to make, which colors to use, which words would best tell my story. It was a horrible feeling. "Idle hands are the devil's tools," I remembered Dad saying. I agreed, because it felt like hell to have lost my gift- my hands. I had just about given up on ever getting them back.

So you can imagine my surprise when, gradually, tonight, I felt that familiar invisible warmth reappear around my hand, and sensed a gentle whisper in my ear. _"P for Ponyboy_," it said. A large unseen hand took mine into his, and, surely, guided me to pick up a pencil.

Mom, Dad, wherever you are, thanks. I've got my hands back.

XXXXXXXXXX

**How was it? Please review.  
**

**Thanks to Calla Lilly Rose for the random inspiration. Somehow I thought of this as I was reading your last chapter.**


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